


A Sentimental Lot

by lightningwaltz



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Afterlife, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-07 23:43:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13445916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: Daine and Rikash have one last conversation.





	A Sentimental Lot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kay_obsessive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_obsessive/gifts).



> Hello kay_obsessive! This came together from several strands in your letter. I also think it's pretty cute Daine names her kid after Rikash and part of me just really wanted to see him heckling that decision (but also being secretly kind of touched.) You liked their conversations, and I was dying to write more of them. Finally, you talked mentioned "Or maybe there’s some magic immortals loophole that would let him come back from the dead." I didn't quite manage to bring him back from the dead, but I did write Daine communicating with him across realms. Thank you for the great prompts. This was seriously fun to write.

Daine is aware of the gray, ebbing light well before she is aware of being awake. The sun has nearly set. Very soon the sky will follow it, and they will be shrouded in the long, long night. She swallows, feeling as though dust coats the back of her throat. Though she adores bats, she has never felt the need to imitate their sleeping habits. She hates waking up from a nap to find that the afternoon has melted into evening. She can't imagine starting her day around dusk all the time.

Back around dawn, Daine had given birth to her second child. His entrance into the world could not have been more different than his sister’s. Just after her own birth, Sarralyn had transformed into nearly every mammal contained in Daine’s anatomy book. In comparison, Sarralyn’s younger brother stayed steadfastly human. He had been examined, cleaned, and placed in Daine’s arms as the midwife chattered away about how second births were often easier. _Oh, we believe you,_ Daine and Numair had both chorused. 

Even so, childbirth exacts a heavy toll. Daine will remember very little of the hours that followed it. Scraps of memory are all that will be left to her. Numair’s smile here. A short discussion of names there. Sarralyn shuffling in, her odd gait making her parents laugh until they were slightly delirious. At some point Sarralyn had seen an illustration of the flightless, black and white birds that clustered in the icy, distant south. Though she had promised to remain in human form until her fifth birthday, she clearly pined to transform again. After a certain point, though, Numair took both children away in order to allow Daine to rest. 

As she lies there, Daine’s bones are fragile and foreign below her skin. Though it’s a matter of hours rather than days this is the same exact feeling she has after taking part in some ambitious magical working. 

She should reach out for her husband and children. Daine wants to hold her son, and try to find all of his parents’ features in miniature. She wants to hear more of Sarralyn’s toddler wisdom; by turns jovial and taciturn. 

But she also likes putting shaky feet on the ground, walking up to the window, and listening to Midwinter revelry drift in. There’s a pigeon on the sill, and he watches her with one piercing eye. Before she can reach out to him- ask him what has him traveling so late in the day- there’s a flapping sound, and a rush of wings. He’s gone before they can speak. 

Daine thinks she’s awake, but the air seems to pulsate and shiver with a dream logic that calls to her. Transforming into a pigeon takes more than a little effort than it has in the past. In addition to labor being a wearying thing, she has not done this in a year. When she and Numair decided to attempt for a second child, she set her charm aside and refrained from transforming. Daine loved her daughter more than she thought possible, but she had not always loved that pregnancy. 

Carrying her son had had his own challenges, too. No soaring into the sky when the whim struck her, or circumstances demanded it. No running with the herd or diving beneath the waves. Humans could be terribly solitary and grounded. 

_I’ll just circle around in the sky._ She opens the window. The air is, indeed, quite cool. But not oppressively so. It’ll clear her mind. 

Instead, she flies up and up. And further up, still. Daine is nearly drifting, like pollen on the wind, and doesn’t realize how far she’s gone until she sees clouds far below. Snow-like, pristine. The sky all around her is as dark as the depths of the ocean. There’s some panic within her, but it doesn’t quite reach Daine’s heart. It’s like when a limb falls asleep on her and no amount of poking inspires feeling in the skin’s nerves.

There’s nothing Daine can do but fly. 

Time shatters and floats away from her. Minutes, hours, or days. It is impossible to say. She can never reach the clouds below, nor the stars above. It’s an expansive, endless canvas for the gods. 

Then she sees trees on the distance, like weeds sprouting from a thick mist. When she flies up to them, she perches on a branch. All at once she feels bark against her hands and the back of her thighs. Daine is human again, without ever having decided to make the shift back. The badger’s claw presses against her sternum, and her feet are cold in the empty air. Below her, she sees branches, clouds, and an endless void. In the distance, she can see vague figures perched on distant trees. They don’t move, and they aren’t human. 

Daine notes the fact that the hem of her nightgown is brushing against her shins. She has never managed to transform and retain her clothing, and she doesn’t think she would make that magical leap soon after childbirth.

“Did I die?” she wants to know. Daine had once stopped her own heart- purely by mistake- and the results of that had been just as strange. The question seeps into her, the way blood and dye could leave stains. She doesn’t want this cold, dead place. She wants her children and husband. 

The sound of metal clattering together. The undeniable stench that tears through the chilly serenity of this place. She welcomes both, even before realizing they imply sudden company. 

“Of course not. Though, as always, you have an annoying habit of ignoring boundaries between mortal and divine territories.” 

Daine has to cling to the branch to keep from leaping up. Logic doesn't seem to be a welcome party in this place and she doesn’t know if she could transform into a winged creature in order to save herself if she falls into the void (if she is, indeed, still alive.) 

“Rikash!” She’s surprised. She’s not surprised at all. 

He's seated on the branch across from her, horribly contented, horribly smug, undeniably real.

“Don’t gape like that. You act like you’ve never spoken to a dead person before.” 

How strange, alluding to Weiryn and Sarra’s cozy cottage. Waking up to she sight of her mother whole and well again, after years of mourning. It couldn’t be more different than where Daine and Rikash currently sit. Sometimes she remembers that meal together; her and Numair, her parents and other gods. And Rikash. Daine doesn’t regret rushing back to the mortal realms, but that is also a moment she wishes she could step inside and experience again. It would have been a strangely blessed night had they not had the threat of war looming over everything. 

“If I’m not dead, does that also mean you’re still alive?” 

Rikash’s laugh had never been pleasant, but Daine warms at hearing it. “I know you’re a smarter person than that. I just said you were talking to a dead person.” 

“So this is where Stormwings go when they die?” A rough wind pushes her curls into her eyes, and she brushes them away. “I thought it would be…” She trails off, wondering how rude one could be to someone long dead and long missed. 

“You thought it would be a field full of rotting carcasses,” Rikash says cheerfully. “Well guess what? So did I! The gods can be _so_ contrary.” 

“My heart bleeds for you.” The retort slips out easily.

“I’ve thought about that too, but I think I understand.” Rikash smirks at her. “You’re not looking down. Why?” 

Daine raises an eyebrow. “Because I’m afraid. There’s nothing down there for miles.” _If there is anything at all, there is._

“Exactly. And isn’t a lack of knowledge the most terrifying thing of all? We feed on fear and this place is built on the essence of fear.” 

Bumps rise on Daine’s skin, even though she’s growing accustomed to the icy air. “If I’m not dead, how did I end up here?” 

Rikash lifts an eyebrow. “I’m dead, not omniscient. I’m just as taken aback as you are. I’m sure you can figure it out, though. Tell me what was happening in your world. What were you doing?” 

She rests her head against the trunk of the tree. It’s rough, but she doesn’t think it will leave splinters. 

“Well, I did just give birth to my son. It was Midwinter? Then I fell asleep.” 

“That’ll do it.” Rikash says. 

“Oh?” 

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that bearing children is dangerous for mortals. Even with all your magic, you’ve got a foot halfway in the Black God’s realm every time you attempt it. And then doing all that on Midwinter…” Rikash shakes his head, bones rattling in his hair as he does so. “Which just so _happens_ to be a day when boundaries blur between all the realms. Tell me, did you follow a pigeon here?” 

Daine’s silence speaks volumes. Rikash let out a startled guffaw. 

“No, wait, did you really? That’s delightful. Since you’re presumably still shackled to Long Lankin down there, surely you’d know pigeons and the Black God are associated with one another?” 

“I was somewhat _busy_ today, and I don’t always have room in my head for lore like that when it isn't immediately needful.” Daine doesn’t know why she’s smiling. Grinning, really. 

When Rikash’s laughter finally dies down, the look he gives her is as cutting as any of the Black God's pigeon. 

“I can’t believe you’re a mother.” His voice is almost soft. 

That throws cooling water on her pleasant feelings. “Are you saying you think I shouldn’t be?” 

“No, no, do what you like. I was an immortal, though. I’ve been around for a good long while. A few blinks ago, you were that annoying child hiding in caves in Dunlath. Now you have children of your own. One does get a little surprised at the passage of time.” 

Daine doesn’t know what to say to that, at first. She clings to the mention of Dunlath the way one might cling to the edge of a cliff. “That reminds me. Maura is doing well.”

It’s worth it for the way Rikash’s eyes brighten, and the way he carefully composes his next question. “Oh really? What is she up to these days?”

_I hope this helps him rest in peace._ Not too long ago, peace and Stormwings would have seemed anathema to Daine. Now, they converse about an old friend and she enjoys the pleasure it seems to give him. 

“I hear you were the one that petitioned the gods to allow my kind to stay in the mortal realms.” Rikash says when they've exhausted discussion about the few people they have in common. 

“How did you hear that?” Other than Numair, no one else knows this about Daine. 

Rikash smirks. “We have an eternity to gossip. All news eventually ends up here.” 

Daine bows her head, lifting her hand from the branch. She clutches onto the badger’s claw. The Immortals’ war was not the last conflict Tortall had ever seen. There have been times she’s seen Stormwings ravage the bodies of acquaintances. It was also agonizing, but that made her even more certain of her decision. 

“You’ve gone all pensive even though time is wasting.” 

_Is it?_

“I don’t regret the battles I fought in,” she says at last. “But I will be happy if my children never have to take part in a war, or raise a weapon to kill. Same goes for anyone’s children.” 

“You have an effect on your children, but it's a tad ambitious to think you can improve the lot of _all_ children.” Rikash’s voice is not unkind. 

“Yes, but as I told the gods… If Stormwings can help counteract human instinct to kill each other then maybe there will be more children leading peaceful lives overall.” Daine would have to believe that. 

“You said you had children. Not just a child. How many?” 

“Two. A girl and a boy.” 

“I have to confess I’m curious about what kind of young you and the mage would have. Can I see?” 

Daine is puzzled. “How? They’re worlds away.” 

Rikash holds out his hand, and it takes a moment for Daine to realize the implicit message. She realizes it’s the only time they’ve ever touched. Friend or not, humans could not embrace a Stormwing without being torn to ribbons. 

This she could manage. She takes her hand in his, and shows him a waking dream.

He laughs at a vision of her daughter’s early years, and her constant transformations. He laughs harder when he learns about Sarra’s intervention in that chaos. 

“This is fantastic. She’ll keep you on your toes.” He sounds like a fond uncle. Daine finds it’s impossible to begrudge him that. 

Though he immediately tests that when he learns about her son. 

“Oh by all the gods. You named him after _me._ I’m almost _disappointed._ I never knew you could be so sentimental.” 

“We might- _might_ \- name him after you.” Daine all but wails this, before she catches herself. “And his last name is just going to be Salmalin. Not _Moonsword._ ” 

“I imagine you’ll make it even more precious and call him something horrendous for short. Rikky, perhaps?” 

Daine lets out an unfeigned shudder. “No, that sounds even worse than when you run your nails over your wings.” 

“Considering who his father is, he’s going to be _very_ tall. Perhaps you should give him an embarrassing nickname to take him down a peg, though.” 

“I’ll consider your advice.”

They both laugh then, and she realizes it’s the only time she’s heard her laughter joined with his. It’s bittersweet, all these simultaneous firsts and lasts rolled up together. But it’s a gift all the same. When they finish, he plucks out a wing, and places it flat side down in her hand. She makes sure to hold it carefully. 

“Speaking of advice, oh mother bear… You’ve probably be wondering all this time how to get back to that family of yours.” 

Even now, all these years later, Daine experiences a kind of glow at the phrase _‘your family.’_ Perhaps that’s why she looks at Rikash on that tree branch and thinks about how very solitary he seems. 

“Don’t give me those weepy eyes. Bad enough you named your son after me. Make sure to keep that wing on a high shelf so your kids can't get it.” 

"Oh, Numair's spelled a lot of things so they can't get to them." Daine is stalling and she knows it. “Alright, how do I return home?” A steady voice is all she can offer Rikash. 

He makes a sweeping gesture, indicating the emptiness below. “You know how.” 

She keeps from screaming, barely. “I can’t just fly back?” 

“No. I’m sorry.” And Rikash sounds like he means it. "Try to have all your children on Midwinter. I've missed you."

"I'll keep that in mind. And I've missed you too."

Daine gives him a long, long look. Memorizing his features. Silently communicating a lifetime’s worth of sniping and joking. Then she sucks in a breath and throws herself into the void. 

The fall should take an eternity. Instead, she is back in her bed within moments. The light in the room is the same pale gray as before. Everything is as she left it, save for the Stormwing feather in her hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I never saw anything conclusive about where immortals go when they die. The Black God's realm seems to be for humans, at least as far as I could glean from the canon review I did. I apologize if I contradict anything!


End file.
